As the forces of nature marshall for an attack on the east coast, I thought I'd call attention to Belfer's new blog, Power & Policy (via SW). If it becomes a breakout hit, we just might have to think our whole lack of institutional affiliation approach.(I thought of making some kind of lame "power" joke. Something along the lines of, "better check them out until they're just "policy." But then I thought better of it.)My parents got an advanced...
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Semantic polling: the next foreign policy tool
George Gallup - what have you started? The traditional methods for a state to know what overseas publics are thinking are changing. Instead of relying on your embassy staff’s alertness, your spies’ intelligence and the word of dissidents, we’re reaching the point where foreign policymakers can constantly monitor public opinion in countries in real-time. The digitization of social life around the world – uneven yes, but spreading – leaves...
Quote of the Day
Krugman:In short, there’s no reason at all to consider microeconomics the “real” economics and macroeconomics some kind of flaky impostor. Yes, micro is a lot more rigorous — but if it’s rigorously wrong, who cares?
Precision Guided Words? Libya and International Law
Guest Post by Betcy Jose-Thota, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado-Denver. According to al Jazeera’s English language website, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Mahmoud Jibril, head of the National Transitional Council, met on Wednesday to discuss what a post-Gaddafi Libya would look like. After the meeting, Sarkozy told reporters that NATO would continue its military operation in Libya as long as Gaddafi remained a threat, stating:...
What Exactly is the Point of Foreign Policy Analysts?: Lessons from Libya (and any other crisis in history)
I don't follow the news as closely as I should. I am not up on everyone's blogs. I don't check the Brookings Institution for every new report it issues. I am a lazy blogger. But I do seem to recall when this whole Libya thing started and didn't end successfully immediately that all kinds of "foreign policy analysts" came out of the woodwork to say it wouldn't work, that we were merely facilitating and prolonging a protracted civil war...
What Not to Do in Libya
I am pretty much as ignorant about Libya as the next person, so let me just suggest a few generic lessons learned from other conflicts:Don't hold elections immediately. Everyone likes to do so to give the new folks legitimacy, but then it usually means empowering those who might not be the best folks to be empowered (see Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan). Think carefully about the guys with guns on both sides. Biggest mistake in early Iraq was firing...
Resilience and the Future of Pastoralism in the Horn – part V (of the series on the 2011 East African drought)
Does pastoralism -- the livelihood of semi-nomadic animal herders like the Maasai -- have a future in East Africa? In my concluding post on the famine in the Horn of Africa, it seems like a fair question to ask, no more controversial than whether Somalia should be divided into several countries (see here, here, here, and here for previous posts).I ask this because much of the commentary on the current crisis in the Horn of Africa suggests that...
Epistemic Communities and their Discontents
Of note to those following developments in autonomous lethal robots should be an article published this summer in the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, entitled “International Governance of Autonomous Lethal Robots.” It is co-authored by a bevy of individuals calling themselves the Autonomous Robotics Thrust Group of the Consortium on Emerging Technologies, Military Operations and National Security (CETMONS), a collection of ethics...
Entire Earth Asphyxiating, Zombie Book Blamed
The Canard "All the fake news that's fit to print" ---Earth The globe is suffering from a sudden decline in the volume of oxygen, sending world leaders scurrying to sustain life on earth. Although scientists recognize that there could be any number of reasons, such as increases in pollution and CO2, they believe that the drop is too steep to be explained by these gradual processes. Instead they are focusing their suspicions on the recent...
Sunday Productivity Blogging: Sciral
I procrastinate by reading productivity blogs, in the hopes that the Universe will somehow find the irony funny enough to let me avoid the consequences of procrastination. (In year ten of this experiment, I can only say so far that the results are not what I initially desired.) One happy consequence of this habit is that I have picked up a few tools which do actually make me more productive. So, in the spirit of Charli's nerd-bloggin' Fridays,...
The US Department of Defense Law of War Manual: An Update
They're updating this. I have a report in the 2009 (they're a bit behind...just go with it) Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law on efforts to produce a new service-wide US Department of Defence Law of War Manual. This would replace FM 27-10 and (should it ever see the light of day...just go with it) will be an incredibly important statement of US practice on the laws of war.I consulted on and observed this project from August-December...
Do words matter?
The Obama administration's rhetorical escalation on Syria this week seems to have generated quite a bit of skepticism that it will have any effect. Drezner sees it as mostly harmless and won't really do any good. Daniel Serwer thinks for it to be effective, others are going to have to push harder. Andrew Sullivan finds Assad unfazed. True to form, the Neocons see it as too little. On one level these are fair points -- if the sole measure of...